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first records of Edwardsiana sociabilis (ossiannilsson, 1936) andLaburrus pellax (horváth, 1903) (hemiptera, auchenorrhyncha:cicadellidae) in Switzerland

andrea zanetta1,2, david frey1,3, Marco Moretti1 & valeria

trivellone1,4

1 Swiss federal research institute wSl, Biodiversity and conservation Biology, zürcherstrasse 111,ch-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland

2 university of fribourg, department of Biology, ecology & evolution, chemin du Musée 10, ch-1700 fribourg, Switzerland

3 institute for terrestrial ecosystems, department of environmental Systems Science, eth zurich,universitätstrasse 16, ch-8092 zürich, Switzerland

4 university of neuchâtel, laboratory of Soil Biodiversity, rue emile argand 11, ch-2000 neuchâ-tel, Switzerland

corresponding author: valeria.trivellone@gmail.com

the leafhopper species Edwardsiana sociabilis (ossiannilsson, 1936) and Laburrus pellax (horváth,1903) were recorded in Switzerland for the first time in the frame of an extensive invertebrate surveyof 85 urban gardens in the city of zurich. Both species are native to europe and feed on the frequentlycultivated ornamental plant genera Rosa and Aster, respectively. no significantly negative impact onthe vegetation is currently known. Based on these and previous findings, our study indicates that sur-veying the invertebrate fauna in urbanized environments is important for the early detection of newspecies in a given geographic area.

Keywords: cicadellidae, distribution, early detection, first record, garden, phytophagous insects,urban ized area, city of zurich.

introduction

urban areas are highly heterogeneous environments that support a high floral andfaunal biodiversity and are characterized by warmer temperatures than their sur-roundings (Sattler et al. 2010). gardens are important elements of the urban mosaicbecause they occupy large areas (gaston et al. 2005) and provide habitats for numer -ous species of plants and animals (Mcdonnell & hahs 2008; goddard et al. 2010).despite the importance, however, for example for early detecting new species orfor surveying the biodiversity in urban environments, relatively few studies on urbangarden biodiversity exist (goddard et al. 2010).

gardens are usually small artificial landscapes that are constructed and main-tained by humans and which host a diversity of cultivated plants: many of whichare exotics that are produced in nurseries and traded internationally (Smith et al.2006; Quigly 2011). Such plants can host a multitude of native and non-native phy-tophagous insect species (rabitsch 2010; trivellone et al. 2015). although arthro-pods have important roles in providing ecosystem services (e.g. pollination) anddrawbacks (e.g. as pest), relatively few studies have been conducted on the arthro-

Mitteilungen der SchweizeriSchen entoMologiSchen geSellSchaftBULLETIN DE LA SOCIETE ENTOMOLOGIQUE SUISSE

89: 281–287, 2016 doi:10.5281/zenodo.192642

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pod fauna present in cities when compared to the number of studies on plant andvertebrate taxa (Mcintyre 2000; Sattler et al. 2010). to our knowledge, there havebeen particularly few studies on hemiptera auchenorrhyncha (hereafter referred toas leafhoppers) in urban habitats (e.g. Mühlethaler 2001; turrini & Knop 2015).leafhoppers are strictly associated to their host plants: feeding on plant sap or cellcontents, and using them as breeding sites. furthermore, leafhoppers can transmitplant pathogens.

a provisory checklist of leafhoppers found in Switzerland contains 422 spe-cies (günthart & Mühlethaler 2002), although anecdotal evidence suggests that thisnumber might be considerably higher with more than 500 species (Mühlethaler etal. 2009). in 2005, there were seven non-native species of leafhoppers that had beenlisted as present in Switzerland, of which two species of american origin are knownto have serious negative impacts on crop production (Kenis 2005). at least 30 newleafhopper species have been recorded in Switzerland since 2005, which is largelydue to a higher willingness by researchers to include leafhoppers and planthoppersin biodiversity studies (trivellone et al. 2015).

here we report the first records of two leafhopper species in Switzerland:Edwardsiana sociabilis (ossiannilsson, 1936) and Laburrus pellax (horváth, 1903).

MaterialS and MethodS

an invertebrate survey was conducted as part of the Sinergia Snf (Swiss nationalfoundation) project Bettergardens (www.bettergardens.ch), which is led by theresearch institute of organic agriculture (fiBl) in collaboration with the Swissfederal research institute for forest Snow and landscape (wSl). the survey wascarried out in 85 urban gardens distributed across the city of zurich (Switzerland),which consisted of 43 private gardens, 41 allotment gardens and one school garden.garden lots were chosen according to two criteria: 1) a management intensity andstructural complexity gradient, ranging from extensive and structurally rich to inten-sive and structurally poor; and 2) an urbanization gradient, ranging from the citycentre to the urban fringe. within each garden, surface dwelling arthropods and ter-restrial gastropods were caught using six 70-mm diameter pitfall traps covered withtransparent roofs as rain protection. Pitfall traps were placed in two of the commongarden habitats, such as lawn, flowerbeds, vegetable-beds and berry cultivations.within each garden habitat, pitfall traps were arranged in two equilateral triangleswith a side length of 1 m. in cases in which the arrangement in triangles was notpossible the pitfall traps were arranged in rows of 1 m length. in addition, flyingarthropods were sampled with three 1-litre bowl traps fixed on a 1.5-m tall tri- angular wooden pole (Buri et al. 2014), which was placed in a central and unshadedposition in each garden. each bowl was sprayed with either uv-bright blue, whiteor yellow paint (Sparvar leuchtfarbe, Spray-color gmbh, Merzenich, germany,details in westphal et al. 2008). Both pitfall and bowl traps were three quarters filledwith 0.2 % rocima solution (bactericide and fungicide from acima, Buchs, Switzer- land). the traps were continuously open between 18 May 2015 and 19 august 2015and emptied on a weekly basis. trapped invertebrates were sorted in the laboratoryinto specific taxa and sent to specialists for species identification. all leafhopperadults were identified by the last author. the reference specimens of Edwardsianasociabilis and Laburrus pellax are conserved in her collection.

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in the following section, for each individual of the new species recorded, weinform about the garden type, geographical coordinates, altitude, date of collection,number of individuals, sex, trap type and, for pitfall traps, the habitat type.

reSultS and diScuSSion

cicadellidae

Edwardsiana sociabilis (ossiannilsson, 1936)

(fig. 1)

Material. 1. allotment «Käferberg»; n 47° 24’ 3.132”, e 8° 31’ 25.932” (fig. 2);520 m; 8 June 2015; 1 �; bowl trap.

this Palearctic species is widespread in central-northern europe. its distribu-tion area ranges from germany to Sweden, and from the netherlands to russia(european part) with the most southern record from georgia. Edwardsiana socia-bilis represents one of the rare documented cases in which specialized native leaf-hoppers have shifted to exotic shrubs, such as Rosa rugosa, but in natural habitatsit is confined to the tall herb Filipendula ulmaria (nickel 2008). this species fre-quently occurs in urban areas on Rosa spp., which is one of the most frequently cul-tivated genera among garden plants. the presence of this leafhopper in gardens wasexpected in Switzerland as the species occurs in germany and austria (nickel2003). considering that leafhoppers in gardens have hardly been investigated inSwitzerland, it is not surprising that E. sociabilis has not previously been found.

fig. 1. Edwardsiana sociabilis (ossiannilsson, 1936). Photograph by gernot Kunz.

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Laburrus pellax (horváth, 1903)

(fig. 3)

Material. 1. allotment «Moos»; n 47° 19’ 45.156”, e 8° 32’ 3.804” (fig. 2); 474m; 20 July 2015; 1 �; pitfall trap in lawn. 2. allotment «Bachtobel 2»; n 47° 21’32.292”, e 8° 30’ 10.512” (fig. 2), 502 m; 3 august 2015; 1 �; pitfall trap in vege-table bed.

Laburrus pellax has been recorded in central europe, from Southern russiato france. it is reported to be a monophagous species on Aster linosyris (astera-ceae) in germany (nickel & remane 2002) and in the South Moravian region,czech republic (Malenovský et al. 2011). the presence of L. pellax in an urbansetting raises questions about its monophagy. its host plant A. linosyris is rare inSwitzerland and restricted to semiarid continental grassland or in dry meadows onthe southern slopes of the Swiss alps. Moreover, this plant species is only rarely

fig. 2. geographic locations of the gardens in the city of zurich where the leafhopper species new toSwitzerland were sampled with bowl and pitfall traps during the Bettergardens invertebrate surveybetween May 18th and august 19th 2015. each individual reported in the text is assigned to its res-pective sampling site.

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cultivated in gardens. A. linosyris does not occur within the city of zurich or in adja-cent areas (info flora 2016) and was absent from all of the 85 gardens investigated(d. frey, unpublished results). however, Aster spp. are very common garden plants,and were found in many of the 85 gardens in this study. this suggests that L. pel-lax may also feed on other species belonging to the genus Aster. for instance, inthe botanical survey of the 85 study gardens, A. dumosus, A. novae-angliae, A. novi-belgii were frequently cultivated (d. frey, unpublished results). furthermore, theurban heat island effect (Pickett et al. 2011) may favor L. pellax, which naturallyoccurs in xerothermic habitats.

concluSion

during the invertebrate survey conducted in the city of zurich, we sampled two leaf-hopper species that had not previously been found in Switzerland. the reason theyhave not been found previously might be due to a lack of extensive investigationsof leafhoppers in urban areas. one species: Laburrus pellax is believed to be mono-phagous, but was found in a location in which its host plant was not present, whichraises questions about its monophagy. So far, no impact on vegetation by these twonew species has been reported: in particular with regards to E. sociabilis on Rosaspp. Similar findings have been published within the Bettergardens invertebratesurvey for one weevil species, Euophryum confine (Broun, 1881) (germann et al.2015), two species of true bugs, Chlamydatus saltitans (fallén, 1807) and Tupio-coris rhododendri (dolling, 1972) (frey et al. 2016), and one species of crabronidwasps, Psenulus fulvicornis (Schenk, 1857) (frey et al. in preparation). this indi-cates that biodiversity surveys in cities, and particularly in gardens, have a greatpotential to unveil arthropod species whose presence was not previously known.

acKnowledgeMentS

the Bettergardens project is financed by the Swiss national Science foundation (Sinergia)(no.154416). we thank Simon tresch, giulia Benazzi and Sofia Mangili for the data sampling,

fig. 3. Laburrus pellax (horváth, 1903). Photograph by gernot Kunz.

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sorting work and the help in the field; the garden owners and the Swiss allotment garden association(Schweizer familiengärtner-verband) and their local sections for providing access to their properties;and grün Stadt zürich for their support, Martin obrist for data bank extractions and robert home forthe revision of the manuscript. we are very grateful to gernot Kunz for providing the pictures of E.sociabilis and L. pellax.

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(received november 11, 2016, accepted november 14, 2016, published december 31, 2016)